It's compulsive stuff: some hate each other on sight, others fall head-over-heels and most part 'as friends'.

As maître d’, Sirieix was meant to simply greet and seat the participants – but once producers recognised his knack for reciting proverbs and Shakespeare quotes, they promoted him to present the show.

It was never meant to happen, the 43-year-old tells me when we meet at the site of his day job: Michelin-starred restaurant Galvin at Windows.

“I was not desperate to be on TV. I was reluctant to be on the TV.” He says it was the “warm, true” nature of the show in helping people find love that won him over - and he has now launched a book on the same topic: The Art of Love.

What makes him an expert on the topic?

“I’m me, I’m as honest as I can be. I’m as balanced as I can be in my comments, in my judgement, you know. If [people] ask me a specific question I’m just going to tell them what I think.”

He lives in London with his partner Alex, and their two children – Andrea, 11 and Lucien, six – but refuses to talk about the story of how they met (“I want to keep my life private.”)

Fred and the Staff at the First Dates restaurant

But does explain that his interest in love stems from his childhood.

“I have a lot of faith inside because I had a very loving family. Unconditional love from my parents, and that grounding that it gives you - that sense of security that you know it’s going to be alright, somebody is going to give you an aspirin if you’ve got a headache, or somebody’s going to take your temperature, or put you in bed – all that means I have a very secure, very deep, kind of confidence inside me and I’m able to let go.”

Sirieix comes across as romantic and old-fashioned, but is broadly in favour of online dating – from websites to apps like Tinder. “Why not?” he says. “What is romance anyway? I think that maybe romance is that sense that you are connecting with somebody. That somebody is giving their time and you are giving your time and that you understand what they do and they understand what you do.”

But he does warn that swiping through hundreds of faces to find a date can be damaging.

“I think the only thing with online dating is that it gives you an endless supply of people and, because of the way the brain works [when] you’ve got too much choice, it’s an addiction. Some people make so much of it. It’s like they are looking for a house, but look at two hundred houses.

“I mean I’ve seen people going on 80 first dates. This becomes your life. You talk to them on WhatsApp, you text them, you call them - have a conversation, maybe three - then you arrange to meet. This is all you do! It’s just like a series of useless encounters - you meet strangers all the time.

"But each to their own. I am not here to judge.”

Contestants from First DatesCredit:
Dave King

Essentially, he says, we need to lower our expectations and stop chasing perfection: “People want both excitement, ‘wow, I want to be blown away, have sex in a field’ and then security, ‘oh, bring me money, cook me dinner.’

"And you want to have that balance there which is not necessarily always possible.”

He also feels passionately about women splitting the bill rather than expecting a man to pick up the tab.

“You go on a date and you expect the man to pay? And then you are campaigning for equal rights and equal pay and everything like that? Sorry, it doesn’t work for me.”

Online dating is helping to change the traditional gender roles associated with romance, and has created a more even playing field. To Sirieix, this is important progress.

“I think it’s good that men and women are becoming more and more equal now. There is this thing that, you know, women wait to be asked out - they don’t make the first move. I don’t see that. I think that women are very forthcoming. We’ve got to go away from this stereotype that women are romantic and men want sex. What rubbish!”

“It’s just kind of this social ineptitude,” he says. “They don’t know how to look people in the eyes, be attentive, smile, sound interesting, listen. Some people find it very difficult to relate to others in that way; to connect. And even if they like somebody, it’s difficult for them to say ‘I like you’. That’s it! You say it!”

The British have a reputation for being out of touch with their feelings, while the French – like Sirieix – are seen as the more romantic race. But Sirieix says this is a myth - as he discovered when he was in France, filming a First Dates special.

“It’s just this French rigidity,” he explains. “Once you got talking to them they were alright. They just took so much warming up. I was like ‘Come on! Come on!’”

He also disbelieves the idea that the French have more affairs than the English, and says he has never cheated on anyone – though he has been cheated on. “I think that it is something that I just never managed to do. But, it doesn’t mean that it is right. It doesn’t make me a saint or anything like that. It’s just what happened.”

Fred Sirieix praised the wife of MP Keith Vaz, who said she would forgive her husbandCredit:
AFP/Getty images

He brings up the story of Keith Vaz, the politician who was found to be seeing rent boys, and thinks it is admirable that his wife has stood by him. “Good for her,” he says. “It’s their lives. When you marry you say you’re there for better and worse - and for her, it was the worse. You have to know what you want.”

To Sirieix, this self-knowledge is key - and he has one last message for people looking for love:

“Be confident and be really clear about what you want. Are you happy with you? Do you know what you want? Can you trust yourself? And then just take it as it comes and just go for it. You only have one life. Why would you hold yourself back with fear?”